Savage Ending (Savage Trilogy 4)

“And you shouldn’t,” he says, confusing me.

I blanch. “What?”

He steps into me, folds me close, his big, hard body overwhelming me in what I call all the right ways if that confusion I’m feeling wasn’t so damn ripe. “I had a shit day today,” he says. “Real shit. The kind I keep to myself. The kind I don’t want to bring into your life. And yet, I found myself on your doorstep. I found myself needing to be here with you.”

“You’re confusing me, Rick.”

He releases me and steps back, running a rough hand through his hair. “You just won’t let me go.”

“What? You came here to me. I don’t want someone who doesn’t want me.”

“I want you, Candace. I want you more than you possibly know. But I’m trying to protect you.”

“I can protect myself.”

“Really? My father’s a bastard who beats my mother. He’s drunk half the time and he’s unfit to operate, but he does. And I haven’t stopped him. That shit is my baggage. And tonight, I took over one of his surgeries. I forced him out and threatened to get him disbarred.” He scrubs his jaw and says, “I need to go.”

My heart leaps and I rush after him, reaching him just in time to plant myself between him and the door, my hand landing on his chest, where his heart thunders madly. “Why would you leave?”

“I told you. To protect you.”

I swallow hard and say, “So you're breaking up with me?”

“Yes,” he says, but there is a rasp in his voice.

“Okay. But you’re here now. You came here because you need me. And Rick,” my throat goes dry thinking of my mother being—gone forever. “I need you, too. So if it’s only tonight—”

He cups my face and says, “I can’t do one night with you. I’ve already proven that. It’s all or nothing.”

“And what do you want?”

“What do you want, Candace?”

I hesitate, but it’s one of those all-in questions that requires an all-in answer. “All. Without question.”

“And what if you can’t handle it all, Candace?”

“My mother once told me that the bravest thing you can do is to trust someone with your heart. Trust me. I trust you.”

“Do you?” he challenges.

“Yes,” I say. “I do.”

His lips lower, lingering above mine, his breath a hot fan, his emotions a stormy eruption, seeping inside me. I can’t breathe. I can’t move. I want him to kiss me, but he doesn’t. He scoops me up and carries me to the bedroom. He turns on the light, leaving me no shelter in the darkness. And then he sets me down at the end of the mattress, him standing with his back to the foot of the bed. “Undress for me,” he orders softly, and there is no question this is a command.

But it’s one that comes with a choice. He sits down and makes it clear in that action that he wants to watch. It’s hard to explain how intense it is to have a man like Rick Savage watching you with this kind of stormy intensity and dominance, but it’s consuming. My mind goes back to moments before when I’d said I trusted him. And he’d said, prove it.

I’ve sensed this darker sexual side to Rick, a dominant side, that for all my independence, appeals to me in ways I never expected. I like it. And I probably love him. Perhaps because he’s careful not to demand, but rather ask, in every other way of our relationship. Some might call whatever this is lust, but I don’t think so. Either way, I seem to understand him at a soul-deep level. He dominates right now. And he wants me to trust him. He wants me to be willing to be vulnerable with him, even after his confessions tonight. Especially because of those confessions.

And so, I do it.

Nervous, excited, aroused, I toe off my shoes, slip out of my pants, and tear away my T-shirt and bra. And when I stand there, fully naked, he doesn’t come closer. He just stares at me, his gaze a hot wash of heat as he inspects every part of me. And when he stands and walks toward me, my nipples are hard and my thighs slick. I ache for the touch that follows. His hands cup my neck over my hair and he drags me to him. “You do know that I’m not even close to done with all I want from you tonight, don’t you?”

“I certainly hope not,” I whisper.

And his lips curve, with satisfaction I don’t fully understand, but I want to. God, how I want to.

I return to the present, and I know this is a night when Rick Savage, needs to be in control. And he needs to know that I trust him no matter what. I undress for him, and this time, my hands still tremble, and my heart still races. Because I know what comes next.